GSMNP'21 - Big Creek to Swallow Fork (Day 1 of 2)
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 9.81 mi
- Elevation gain
- 3,704 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Difficult
- Elevation loss
- 43 ft
- Max elevation
- 5,382 ft
- TrailRank
- 36
- Min elevation
- 1,713 ft
- Trail type
- One Way
- Moving time
- 3 hours 45 minutes
- Time
- 5 hours 23 minutes
- Coordinates
- 2781
- Uploaded
- February 8, 2021
- Recorded
- February 2021
near Crestmont, North Carolina (United States)
Viewed 90 times, downloaded 0 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
Day One of a two day hike up Mount Sterling, though conditions prevented us from reaching out goal of Campsite 38.
This is almost surely a pretty easy-to-moderate hike (and the first 6+ miles were indeed easy), but marking this specific outing as Difficult+ because we were breaking >12 inches of fresh snow once we crossed 4500 feet elevation. We were planning to get to Camp 38 for the night, but the snow proved way too much. As much as we didn't want to, we were forced to quit by the Mount Sterling Ridge intersection.
9.81 miles, 3704 foot elevation gain
Big Creek Campground - Big Creek Trail - (Low Gap Trail out/back) - Swallow Fork Trail - Mount Sterling Ridge Trail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTujdUoxUfo
February 6, 2021
This is almost surely a pretty easy-to-moderate hike (and the first 6+ miles were indeed easy), but marking this specific outing as Difficult+ because we were breaking >12 inches of fresh snow once we crossed 4500 feet elevation. We were planning to get to Camp 38 for the night, but the snow proved way too much. As much as we didn't want to, we were forced to quit by the Mount Sterling Ridge intersection.
9.81 miles, 3704 foot elevation gain
Big Creek Campground - Big Creek Trail - (Low Gap Trail out/back) - Swallow Fork Trail - Mount Sterling Ridge Trail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTujdUoxUfo
February 6, 2021
Waypoints
Car park
River
Bridge
Photo
Intersection
3,035 ft
Intersection of Big Creek Trail and Low Gap Trail
At this intersection, we turned around and returned to Swallow Fork Trail to start our climb up towards Mount Sterling. We'll pick up the last half-mile of Big Creek Trail when we come from the other direction (Low Gap to Camel Gap)
Panorama
Intersection
5,167 ft
Intersection of Swallow Fork and Mount Sterling Ridge
That last mile took us an hour to climb! Snow is over a foot already and unbroken... with 600' elevation to go and daylight receding. Safety checkpoint: not gonna make it to Campsite 38!
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